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Thus did I speak, and spoke it in a strain,
Above my common-rate, and usual vein;
As if inspir'd by presence of the Bard,
Who with a Frown thus to reply was heard;
In style of Satyr, such wherein of old
He the fam'd Tale of Mother Hubberd told.
I come, fond Ideot, ere it be too late,
Kindly to warn thee of thy wretched Fate:
Take heed betimes; repent, and learn of me
To shun the dang'rous Rocks of Poetry:
Had I the choice of Flesh and Blood again,
To act once more in Life's tumultuous Scene;
I'd be a Porter, or a Scavenger,
A Groom, or any thing, but Poet here:
Hast thou observ'd some Hawker of the Town,
Who thro' the Streets with dismal Scream and Tone,
Cries Matches, Small-coal, Brooms, Old Shoes and Boots,
Socks, Sermons, Ballads, Lies, Gazetts, and Votes?
So unrecorded to the Grave I'd go,
And nothing but the Register tell, who:
Rather that poor unheard-of Wretch I'd be,
Than the most glorious Name in Poetry,
With all its boasted Immortality:
Rather than He, who sings on Phrygia's Shore,
The Grecian Bullies fighting, for a Whore:
Or he of Thebes, whome Fame so much extols
For praising Jockies, and New-Market Fools.
So many now, and bad the Scriblers be,
'Tis scandal to be of the Company:
The foul Disease is so prevailing grown.
So much the Fashion of the Court and Town,
That scarce a Man well-bred in either's deem'd:
But who has kill'd, been often clapt, and oft has rhim'd:
The Fools are troubled with a Flux of Brains,
And on each Paper squirt their filthy sense:
A leash of Sonnets, and a dull Lampoon,
Set up an Author, who forthwith is grown
